The Twenty Minute VCThe AI Company Simulating the Entire Economy | Simile Co-founder & CEO, Joon Sung Park
Episode Details
EPISODE INFO
- Released
- August 1, 2026
- Duration
- 1h 5m
- Channel
- The Twenty Minute VC
- Watch on YouTube
- ▶ Open ↗
EPISODE DESCRIPTION
Joon Sung Park is the Founder and CEO of Simile, the AI simulation company building foundation models of human behaviour; allowing companies to test how real people may think, decide and act before making a decision in the real world. Simile has now raised $300 million in total, including a $200 million Series B announced last week at a $2 billion valuation, led by Greenoaks and Index Ventures. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:26 The Valentine's Day Simulation That Put Joon on the Map 03:56 How Agents Got Memory, Planning & Reflection — The Origin Story 07:07 Simile vs. Frontier Models 07:59 Say vs Do: Why Behaviour Data Beats Survey Data 09:33 Prediction Is Overrated 12:31 Is Simile Just a Fancy Qualtrics? The TAM Question 15:48 How Many People Do You Need for Accurate Simulations? 16:56 The Data Flywheel: How the World Becomes the Ground Truth 19:59 Can Simile Simulate Elections, Democracies & Wicked Problems? 21:43 Who Should and Shouldn't Have Access to Simulation Technology? 33:07 How to Build a World-Class Research Team That Doesn't Quit 35:59 The Two Contradictory Superpowers That Make Great Founders 39:10 Competing for Research Talent in the Tens of Millions 43:28 From Researcher to CEO: What Joon Looks for in Academic Founders 44:33 Raising $300M in Six Months: How the Round Came Together 58:01 Is Simile the Future of Love and Matchmaking? 1:00:45 Quick Fire Round ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on X: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Joon Sung Park on X: https://twitter.com/joon_s_pk Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #simulation #ai #ceo #founder
SPEAKERS
Joon Sung Park
guestCo-founder and CEO of Simile, working on simulation-based AI systems and defensible data acquisition strategies.
Harry Stebbings
hostFounder and host of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), interviewing startup founders and investors in tech and venture capital.
EPISODE SUMMARY
In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Joon Sung Park and Harry Stebbings, The AI Company Simulating the Entire Economy | Simile Co-founder & CEO, Joon Sung Park explores simile’s vision: defensible behavior data to run human simulations at scale Simile’s core bet is that the winning AI companies will have defensible data strategies, and for human-behavior modeling that means acquiring representative real-world behavioral data rather than relying on what people say online.
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